The Catholic bishops have lost perspective on the
minor abortion legislation now being proposed to safeguard women's
lives.
And most Catholics know it.
The legislation proposes just one basic thing.That abortion will be available in extreme cases where doctors find a real risk that a woman is likely to die from physical illness or from suicide.
It does not include abortion for rape, although reliable opinion polls show that the vast majority of Catholics support abortion in such cases. Women still have to go to England for that.
It does not give women the right to have an abortion if they want one. Such a termination will depend on medical decisions.
If anyone suspects that a particular doctor or psychiatrist has lied about the reality of a danger to a woman's life, for any reason, then that person can complain to the medical council and to the minister for health.
What man would not want his wife or partner to have the safeguard of abortion where her life is in danger? Who would wish to go through the experience of Savita Halappanavar or her husband?
The bishops, being unmarried, will never find themselves watching their wives die on a hospital table. Or try to comfort a daughter who has been brutally gang-raped but whom they would oblige to have her baby.
Reasonable arguments against the misuse of abortion facilities are undermined when bishops oppose measures to protect the life of a mother.
Their lordships last week made another highly political intervention in the debate. The nature and tone of their campaign against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill raises questions about how the institutional Catholic Church makes its decisions.
A contentious statement issued by the bishops last week began by referring to the fact that "tens of thousands of women, men and children" had gathered in Dublin "to express their support for the equal right to life of mothers and their unborn children".
A video on the bishops' website shows a tight-lipped Archbishop Eamon Martin reading the statement against the backdrop of a photo of those people holding balloons.
Has the archbishop no reservations about the use of children at abortion rallies?
And
why does the archbishop refer to thousands who marched, while ignoring
the fact that most Irish Catholics disagree with him and support
abortion in defined circumstances?
Reliable opinion polls for both the
Sunday Independent and Irish Times show this.
The Irish
hierarchy has never displayed much respect for the intelligence or
spiritual integrity of the majority of Irish Catholics when these
disagree with their lordships. The bishops seem to confuse their own
identity with that of God.
This is one reason why church
congregations are dwindling and why many people who still turn up have
an air of regret about them. Regret for lost opportunities, and for a
people set adrift from their spiritual heritage by the mismanagement of
their Church and its core message.
Does Archbishop Martin
really believe that Catholics who back this bill do not support the
equal right to life of mothers and their unborn children?
Insofar as
this is compatible with the woman's survival, Catholic deputies such as Enda Kenny and others facing intimidation or abuse certainly do.
Is
Archbishop Martin not really saying that, all things being equal, the
hierarchy prefers the death or disablement of women above the
termination of any pregnancy likely to cause such damage?
Perhaps the wildest church intervention has come from outside Ireland. Irish-American Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston accuses the Taoiseach of "aggressively promoting abortion legislation".
To
accuse Enda Kenny of "aggressively promoting" anything does not show
much grasp of Irish politics. But to accuse him of aggressively
promoting abortion is downright silly. It disrespects the Irish State.
O'Malley's
views matter because he was one of the outside bishops brought into
Ireland to report secretly to the Vatican on the disastrous state of the
Irish Catholic Church.
The bishops do not seem very
worried about an equal right to life in other circumstances.
Every day
men and women die while wealthier people buy the lifestyle and medical
care to extend their lives. Is the hierarchy outraged?
And
Catholics kill people in wars but bishops do not forbid them to do so.
Only the unborn children of women in danger seem to worry their
lordships. Is there really no such thing as a "just" abortion, like
there is a just war?
Some of what the bishops say is
highly debatable, and not least their statement last week that "the
Government is under no obligation to legislate for the X case".
If
this is not simply untrue, or a contorted way of claiming that the
Government may ignore a decision of the Supreme Court, it certainly
brushes aside the practical implications of the X case.
But
then perhaps the bishops would like to turn the clock back and lock up
women like X, women who try to leave Ireland for abortions abroad that
are unavailable here. Unavailable even when their lives are at risk.